


Corrupted

by icewine



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Canon Universe, Character Study, Child Abuse, Dubious Consent, Internal Conflict, M/M, Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:16:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewine/pseuds/icewine
Summary: Sebastian knows what his master desires of him tonight, even if the boy himself does not.For some reason, the boy is particularly needy tonight, and so he is testing limits, testing boundaries; pushing and pushing Sebastian, testing to see how he far he could be pushed; if he will remain in place, if he will push back.So, Sebastian does what he has learned to do on these nights, when doors are left ajar, when the scabs are peeled off, when vulnerabilities lay exposed like sears on a burn victim. He holds his face a little closer than usual to his master’s when carrying him, burying his mouth in the boy’s hair. He leans in a bit more than usual when speaking to him, so that his breath warms the child’s ear.





	Corrupted

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a companion piece to another story I wrote, But is it true? as we take a trip through Sebastian’s mind and see the relationship from his POV. It’s the same time period as that one, so pre-series. Long enough after the contract that Sebastian has fully gotten his (metaphorical) claws into Ciel, but he’s not yet hardened into the ruthless, unfeeling version from the series. This means that Ciel is maybe 11-12 in this story. And there’s, um, sex. I feel appropriately terrible and creepy. Anyway, this serves as another underage warning if you’re not paying attention to the tags.

Sebastian knows what his master desires of him tonight, even if the boy himself does not. The child has been unusually difficult; moody, sullen, petulant. He has refused his lessons, refused business meetings, refused dinner, refused to speak even, beyond a few monosyllabic grumbles. Whenever he has deigned to speak, his words have been dipped in venom, aimed directly at Sebastian like a poisoned dart. It is the sort of restlessness and irritability that acts as a veil for some other emotion, some weakness that the young Earl doesn’t want to reveal, prefers to ignore, prefers to deny even to himself. The demon thinks this might be _sadness_ , or _loneliness_. Centuries of living among humans has given him a keen sense for their limitless capacity for self-deception. Humans never lie as expertly as they do when they are lying to themselves. For some reason, the boy is particularly needy tonight, and so he is testing limits, testing boundaries; pushing and pushing Sebastian, testing to see how he far he could be pushed; if he will remain in place, if he will push back.

So Sebastian does what he has learned to do on these nights, when doors are left ajar, when the scabs are peeled off, when vulnerabilities lay exposed like sears on a burn victim. He holds his face a little closer than usual to his master’s when carrying him, burying his mouth in the boy’s hair. He leans in a bit more than usual when speaking to him, so that his breath warms the child’s ear. When preparing him for bed, he runs his hand through soft, midnight blue hair to undo the threads of his eyepatch, grazing his fingers softly against the sensitive skin at the nape of his neck. He unbuttons his master’s shirt slower and more deliberately than usual, lightly brushing his knuckles against the boy’s skin, feeling its surface change to gooseflesh beneath his touch. Once undressed, he lets his gaze roam covetously over the child’s nude torso before looking up and locking eyes with his master.

The boy can sense the shift in the atmosphere. He doesn’t know what he is sensing, but knows that something thick and heavy like fumes now hangs in the air between them. His cheeks flush as he tries to hold Sebastian’s gaze as long as he can, before eventually averting his eyes. The demon can sense the boy’s heart racing, can hear his breathing becoming more shallow, and can feel the flush of heat coming off of him. Sebastian lets Ciel sit on the edge of the bed nude while he reaches behind him to get the boy’s nightshirt. his hand drops _casually_ on the child’s lap and remains there, as he rubs a gloved finger languidly against the inside of his knee. By the time Sebastian has finished pulling the nightshirt on, Ciel’s body is alight with some unnamed want, like something that sits on his chest and throws its tentacles around his ribcage, threatening to choke his breath. Sebastian is then compelled to only _feign_ surprise when, just as he is about to blow out the candles and take his leave, the boy reaches out and grasps his forearm, gripping the sleeve of his waistcoat and pulling him down.

 “Yes young master, is there anything else you require of me?” Sebastian asks, moulding his expression into one of benign, dutiful expectation.

Ciel, his eyes wide and stricken, looks up, fixes on Sebastian’s and swallows before looking down and letting go of his sleeve. He then shifts over in his bed to leave a space at the edge, before lying down and facing the wall away from his butler. Sebastian smiles, places the candelabra on the night-table, and proceeds to remove his shoes and undo and fold his waistcoat before lying down in the space left for him by his master. He lays on his side, facing the young Earl’s back… and waits.

*****

The demon can feel himself melding into _Sebastian Michaelis. Or perhaps it is the other way around._ He had in the past stood as a disengaged spectator to the circus of humanity, its whorls of chaos, violence, cruelty, disaster; seemingly moving from one calamity to the next; some natural in origin, but most self-inflicted. He himself moved from one soul to the next, one contract to the next, sometimes coaxing and directing the chaos to suit his intentions, but for the most part uninterested in mingling too intimately with humanity, lest he become corrupted. He enjoyed the expediency of it. A contract made, a soul possessed, a soul devoured, and the earth would rotate back towards the sun. The consumed souls were simple sustenance, as indistinguishable from one another as the contracts themselves; always some petty, venal, utterly _human_ desire, vanity or wealth. He would watch his contractors’ pointless chasing of the wind with clinical detachment, and then would step in at the end and collect his payment. His human disguise was never more than that – a means to an end; one more weapon in his armamentarium, finely calibrated to fulfill the terms of the contract as expediently as possible. There was an almost mathematical simplicity to it; the shortest distance between two points.

But now, he is finding himself as spectator in his own body, onlooker to his own alter ego, as it seems to simultaneously diverge from and converge onto him, seems to absorb and be absorbed by him. The line between demon and human is becoming increasingly blurred, so that _Sebastian Michaelis_ is no longer the skin that he will eventually shed but the chimera into which he is morphing. He finds himself both observing Sebastian’s thoughts, and thinking Sebastian’s thoughts; both observing Sebastian’s feelings and _feeling_ Sebastian’s feelings. He feels Sebastian’s body crawling with need, the skin he’s encased in hot, taut and tight with it. He feels the craving, the desperate longing, the _want_ that always seems pool in Sebastian’s lower abdomen. He is not sure how it came about, how he and _Sebastian Michaelis_ diverged – or perhaps converged. All he knows is that the Venn diagram of demon and human, which had overlapped perfectly in the past, now lay slightly askew. His hunger, set ablaze and galvanized by the searing incandescence of the soul of Ciel Phantomhive, had fissioned into _desire_. The demon _hungers_ for Ciel Phantomhive, but Sebastian Michaelis _wants_ Ciel Phantomhive. _Desires_ him. Desires his body. Perhaps wants more than just his body. Sometimes he feels Sebastian’s heart – branded by the boy’s name the way his hand is branded by their shared mark -  clench and ache, pound desperately against his chest.

******

For a time, they lie next to each other in silence. Sebastian stares at his master’s back as the boy lies there curled up and coiled like a spring. He can sense the waves of confusion and need within the boy. The scent wafts from him and the demon’s mouth waters at the smell of it.  Finally, Ciel turns around, faces Sebastian with his eyes averted, and tentatively reaches out to find the butler’s contract hand. He slowly removes the glove and begins to trace the outlines of their shared mark. He runs his fingers along Sebastian’s own, and thumbs along the tip of the black nails. Sebastian looks on with an impassive expression, while the storm of hunger and desire and need and _ache_ churns underneath a placid surface. Ciel then takes the hand and places it around his small, narrow torso as he huddles closer and presses his brow against Sebastian’s chest. Tacit permission given, Sebastian can finally run his palm up Ciel’s back and down his chest and over his neck and face, while the young Earl shudders against him. He can finally bury his face in the boy’s hair to breathe in lungfuls of his scent. He can _finally_ pull on the hem of the boy’s nightshirt and palm up underneath, in a desperate search to feel skin.

Sebastian blindly runs his hand over the brand on the back of the Ciel’s ribcage before running the pads of his fingertips slowly and methodically over the protruding ridges and valleys of the boy’s ribs, tracing every single one, trying to commit it all to memory. He feels Ciel’s breathing become heavier as the boy presses himself closer and rubs his cheeks against the front of Sebastian’s dress shirt. A modest hardness is now pressing through his nightshirt against the cloth of Sebastian’s pantleg. Sebastian shifts down to move his lips over the boy’s brow and cheeks, and then over his closed lids, tracing with his tongue the imagined outlines of their shared mark over his right eyelid. Finally, he dips his head to capture his young lord’s mouth with his own, and starts to place gentle kisses on his lips. Ciel, dazed by the sensations, does not respond straight away as Sebastian sucks and licks and runs his tongue against the boy’s closed lips. “ _Young master, please, open your mouth_ ” Sebastian whispers against the young lord’s lips. This finally jolts the boy who blinks his eyes half-open, allowing the light from his contract eye to fall on Sebastian’s marble-white cheekbone. He parts his lips against Sebastian’s to allow himself to be tasted, and wraps his slender arms around his butler’s neck to draw him closer.

*****

The demon often wondered what the boy made of their night-time encounters. The child’s understanding of such adult matters was – he was certain – extremely limited. The boy likely thought of _sex_ – if he gave it any thought at all – as something that belonged in the adult world – that occurred between an adult man and an adult woman, shrouded in the same mystery, same murkiness and unknowableness, the same _vileness_ , as other personal affairs among adults; Something that had a veneer of lewdness, of indecency that he did not care to examine too closely. His family’s dark legacy and his own hellish imprisonment had made it so that very little could rattle or unnerve the young Lord Phantomhive, but somehow the subject of _sex_ still brought about an unease he could not explain, made him drop his gaze, made him feel that he should leave the room on those occasions when the topic was brought up as a part of the House of Phantomhive’s more covert affairs, when his associates would forget that the Queen’s Guard Dog was indeed just a little boy. He had the bizarre sense that such topics should not be spoken of in front of _children_ , though the Earl of Phantomhive so very rarely thought of himself as a child. Such was the paradox of being the last scion of the cursed Phantomhive line, claimed by the devil and damned for eternity, but ultimately nothing but a child trying desperately to become the cold, ruthless monster he was pretending to be, trying desperately to pretend that the demon on the end of the leash was his benevolent protector and guardian.

But, the demon wondered, what _did_ Ciel think of what they did together- what Sebastian did to him - in the darkness, behind closed doors? Where did he place these touches, caresses, sensations and intimacies in the very limited inventory of his lived experiences? He may have thought of it as just another thing that Sebastian did to him, no more intimate or prurient than bathing or dressing or grooming, but something that felt _so good_ it made his mind go blank, his vision become starry, and his whole body shake and shiver. Though the boy was uneasy enough about it that they never spoke of it in the daytime, never mentioned it or acknowledged it outside of the confines of his bedroom. The boy never verbalized his want, never initiated. When he desired _contact_ it always remained unstated. This unease made the demon wonder why the young master – who so often shrank from Sebastian’s and others’ touch in daylight – would ever allow such intimate contact in the first place, would ever give Sebastian such access to explore with his hands and mouth under the cover of darkness. He assumed that this was at least in part due to natural emerging pubescent desires – feelings and urges that the boy didn’t understand, but that so often left him frustrated and taut -  like his body was stretched full and about to snap, tossing back and forth in his bed, tangled up in sheets and grinding hips against the mattress, unable to find relief. Like dangling from a precipice over the crashing waves of the River Thames, always _only_ a hair’s breadth away from loosening his grasp and falling into the dark waters below. Just as likely, though, was that the young Earl simply craved touch, comfort, the safety of being enveloped. He was just a child after all. Strip away the arrogance, the ruthlessness, the hate, the anger, the drive for vengeance, and what was left but a lost and damaged little boy, alone and unloved, wanting someone to hold him and protect him from the nightmares in the dark and the monsters hiding in the shadows.  

And this is how it had all begun. After too many nights of nightmares and terror, reliving his confinement alone in his room, in the dark, replaying his trauma over and over again as if on some endless infernal loop, he began to ask for Sebastian to watch over him while he slept. Eventually, Sebastian knew to act on the unstated wish to climb into his master’s bed, to take the child into his arms, and to press his cheek and bury his nose in the boy’s hair. Ciel was of course seeking comfort, protection, some vague approximation of his parents’ embrace; a foolish desire to regain something that has been lost forever. But this was not what the demon - what _Sebastian_ \- was seeking. The child just wanted another presence in the room - another living human -, willing to disregard the truth of Sebastian’s nature as neither “living” nor “human”, willing to disregard the truth that Sebastian’s touches were not like those of his mother or his father, or those of his aunt, or those of Elizabeth. Colder somehow, though they managed to make him feel an uncanny warmth. But this was all that was left for him. And it all felt so good. Everything about Sebastian felt _so good_ if one chose not to examine it too closely; his strength, his warmth, his unquestioning loyalty, his permanence. Sebastian was as impossibly powerful as a delusion, and as impossibly beautiful as a lie. Humanity had betrayed him, abused him, humiliated him, and abandoned him. But Sebastian would never betray, would never leave, would never die. A soul seemed like a small price to pay in exchange for being forever fortressed within a cavernous mansion, nestled inside the boundless devotion of a demon. And so he learned to lean into the touches, the caresses and the kisses.

Sebastian was always careful about giving his lord too much too soon. The demon could feel _his_ desire – Sebastian’s – and his own hunger colliding, merging within Sebastian, becoming tightly intertwined, creating a _need_ to take Ciel, to touch him and taste him and feel him everywhere, to envelop him, to crawl inside his skin and get close to the center of him, where his soul shone bright. He – _they_ \- were half-mad with hunger, with desire, wanting so much to consume it. But for now, he just wanted to touch it, to get a taste of it. And in order to get close, he knew it was best to creep forward slowly, so as not to overstep and risk having the boy put a stop to it all and order him away.

*****

_Desire._ That thing the boy couldn’t name. The demon had seen it in humans, could recognize it instantly. Had seen humans controlled by it, circling madly into its vortex of need and desperation. Had seen it destroy and engulf. Had seen it, knew how to wield it in humans, how to coax it expertly out of his prey, out of his targets at his previous masters’ behest. Knew to recognize it in his own masters when they would look at him, inhumanly beautiful no matter what physical form he took, embodying the traits and attributes they most _desired_. He could recognize it, but had never felt it himself. Never felt the rush of it, the maddening pull, the heat of it throughout his _human_ body setting his skin ablaze, every nerve ending on fire. But he felt it now because Sebastian felt it. It was like hunger but not. Maybe it was what hunger - his hunger - was when filtered through the prism of the human he was becoming. A hunger not consume flesh, but to possess it, to bury oneself in it. He was also beginning to feel something else. _Feel_. Something deep within him. In his chest? His _heart_ \- the one he shared with Sebastian? Something not quite like hunger or desire. Something like an attachment, like an invisible chain linking him to his master. But not the contract bond. Something else. Something infinitely warmer, but more alien. Something he couldn’t recognize.

*****

The first time Sebastian kissed Ciel, put his lips on his master’s mouth, the boy instantly froze. He didn’t move away, but nor did he respond. The demon could feel his heartbeat – his master’s and his own, _Sebastian_ ’s own– quicken, thumping loudly against their chests. Sebastian moved his lips softly and slowly, running his tongue against the closed line of the boy’s mouth with feather light pressure. He wanted so much to gain entrance, to feel and taste inside, but was petrified that his master would shrink from his touch, slap him and order him away. So he teetered on the razor’s edge until finally it seemed that the boy had been somewhat lulled by the sensations. Sebastian then moved his thumb against the young Earl’s chin, gently pushing it down and allowing the boy’s lips to fall apart just enough so that a tongue could snake inside. And his master’s taste was just as sublime as he had imagined – that intoxicating mix of purity and innocence, of wrath and hatred, of darkness and despair. It was addicting, and Sebastian was unable to stop a moan from escaping his lips. And then, miraculously, the boy started to respond, his body taking over, reacting to the sensations. He began to tentatively suck and run his own tongue against Sebastian’s – against the demons’.

It was not long after that Sebastian was permitted to touch him in other places, take further liberties, make further invasions, corrode further into his defenses. The demon could observe as one night, Sebastian’s hand gently stroked the delicate, sensitive skin of his master’s inner thigh while the boy squirmed and panted in his arms, his eyes shut against the waves of sensation and his face contorted with some fathomless _desire_. Ciel would twist his pelvis and grind his hips trying to get at some endpoint, his frustration reaching a fever-pitch at being perpetually suspended from the precipice, barely clinging on, but never finding release. He breathed in ragged inhalations as Sebastian lightly ran his lips and tongue over his brow, cheek and neck, before placing gentle kisses on his lips. “Does it feel good?” Sebastian whispered against the young lord’s mouth. Ciel let out an exasperated sigh in response, clutching at the cloth of Sebastian’s dress shirt.

“young master, what do you _want_?” Sebastian breathed, attempting to prompt the boy, guide him to where he wanted him to be. “I can only do as you desire if you tell me what it is you want. _Please_ , tell me what you want.”

What _did_ he want? Ciel, the demon suspected, didn’t know the options. What he thought he wanted likely struck him as… _unseemly_. Finally, “I want … Sebastian… I want… _please..._ ”

And taking this as close to a permission as the child was likely to give, Sebastian’s hand slithered further up the boy’s thigh, to the centre of his confusing, unnamed _need_. Ciel drew in a sharp breath at the touch and buried his face in Sebastian’s shoulder. Sebastian continued to fondle and stroke, while Ciel hissed and panted, rubbing his face mindlessly in the crook of his butler’s neck. He clumsily rolled his hips and groin against Sebastian’s open palm, until Sebastian finally wrapped his fingers around his stiffness and started to gently stroke up and down. And Ciel was finally able to loosen his grip, let go of the edge and fall into the dark, bottomless abyss below. _Why did you do that?_ no accusation or suspicion. Just curiosity. _Because my master wanted me to._ Stated simply without explanation or excuse, true enough, but not the whole truth. _Because I wanted to_ , left unstated.

Soon after, the boy allowed Sebastian’s mouth where his hand had been, sending him into even greater peaks of ecstasy, of sensation too strong and too intense for his too young and fragile body. Sebastian would kneel prostrate between the boy’s legs as they dangled off the edge of the bed, his head bent reverentially over his lord’s lap, mouthing, licking, sucking, a worshipper giving penance, while Ciel lay back, hid his face behind his arms and gave himself over to pleasure so intense, so unthinkably, unimaginably powerful, it bordered on pain. And his taste was sublime; blindingly, searingly good, like nothing the demon had ever tasted before it. _My lord… my little lord…_ Sebastian repeated, as if in prayer, as he kissed and rubbed his face against the delicate, translucent skin of Ciel’s inner thigh. And so hunger fed desire and desire fed hunger.

The boy of course never reciprocated. Rarely ever touched Sebastian, even, beyond tangling his hands in his hair and gripping his dress shirt and waistcoat, in attempts to anchor himself against the waves of sensation. He had never expressed any curiosity or desire to do so. On the whole, the demon was fairly certain that it would never occur to the young Earl to do to Sebastian any of the things that Sebastian did to him. _Desire_. The thing the boy couldn’t name. It was not the fully-formed adult version, but its antecedent, its precursor. It was the larval stage of desire, meant to develop over years into its fully mature, ripened form, but was now becoming increasingly gnarled and contorted under the malignancy of Sebastian’s hands and Sebastian’s mouth.

For now, though, this was enough. It was enough to keep the demon’s hunger sated. It was enough to keep Sebastian’s desire at bay. For now. While Sebastian’s own _human_ body had begun to respond to his master, he was careful to maintain control so as not to frighten the boy, not to risk shattering anything fragile. He would close his eyes when he could no longer control the smoldering embers and crimson hellfire that lit up in concert with his excitement. He would carefully angle his body in such a way as to conceal his own arousal from his master. He would always remain gentle when handling the boy’s delicate form, no matter how much his own body wanted to _take_ the boy and do to him what _the demon_ had done so easily and so mechanically at the request of his previous contractors.

*****

 Sebastian’s lips are moving against his masters, his tongue licking, tasting his master’s spit, leaving a residue of himself inside his master’s mouth. Ciel has by now learned to respond to his touches, and is running his own tongue against Sebastian’s, tasting and letting himself be tasted. Sebastian moves his mouth more forcefully against Ciel’s, and feels the boy slowly start to grind against him. He touches and the boy responds. He offers pleasure and the boy takes. He breaks the kiss and Ciel gasps, trying to catch his breath. Sebastian gently turns him and lays him on his back, so that he can push Ciel’s nightshirt up and expose smooth skin to candlelight. He wants to feel skin. He _always_ wants to feel skin. He runs his palms up the sides of Ciel’s ribs and onto his chest and stomach, and turns his hand to run his knuckles down the front of his torso. He imagines what it would feel like to have the master’s bare skin against his own. Imagines what it would be like to feel him from the inside. Wonders what it would feel like if his master were to finally ask him to make it hurt, _just a little._

The demon imagines how his flesh will taste between his fangs, how his soul will taste once consumed…

He positions himself between his master’s legs, and looks up to watch the boy, cheeks flushed, lips kiss-bruised, eyes half-lidded, and chest still heaving as he arches into Sebastian’s touch. He touches and the boy responds. He places his lips against the boy’s sternum and moves his mouth down Ciel’s body to his stomach and further down still, sucking and licking, tasting skin and salty sweat, trying to memorize it all, tuck it away in the corner of his mind, so that he can go back to it again and again until the next time the master allows contact. Ciel twists and writhes beneath him like a single stalk of white rose caught in the eye of a storm. Sebastian’s own breathing is becoming laboured, his own body hot, wracked with want. No longer able to ignore the throbbing ache in his groin, he grinds his pelvis against the mattress in search of friction - of some relief, - as he lets out a groan against his master’s creamy soft, smooth belly, and tries to blink away the smolder and fire in his eyes. He runs his mouth against the convexity of Ciel’s hip bone, licks his master’s taste off his lips and readies to take the boy into his mouth when Ciel’s hands grip his hair by the fistful, and raise his head off of his pelvis. His master tugs up on his hair, and Sebastian shifts himself on the bed following the young lord’s unspoken orders, and allows himself to be pulled up to align their faces. The boy stares up at him and he stares back, mouths no more than an inch apart, both panting, breathing in lungfuls of each other’s breath…

 *****

_Feel_ …

_Something infinitely warmer…_

_Ah, he is calling me…_

By some strange twist of fate, or some accident of the cosmos, this child had managed to summon him - this child that he plucked from the pits of hell, this one man-made unlike the one from whence he was sprung. And there the boy knelt, in the midst of sadness and anger, confusion and despair, covered in blood and dirt and humanity’s cruelty, desperately reaching out his arms and extending his hand for the demon to grasp. His voice was hoarse and his throat raw from screaming heavenward, begging God for help, receiving nothing in response but the deafening silence of a coldly indifferent universe, and – with his last ounce of strength – shifting his eyes downward to summon the devil so that he could offer himself up in exchange for any sort of salvation.

A wish. A sacrifice. A price paid. And a contract made, a bond created. The demon’s human form became manifest, like a comet moth emerging from its cocoon and inflating and spreading its wings, as his body moulded itself along the jagged contours of the fragmented images and fractured memories inside a tortured child’s mind.

The demon looked into the boy’s eyes- one still bleeding from the contract seal -, looked onto his dirt-covered face, took in the spectacle of his wrath – _pure wrath_ , his despair- _pure despair_ -, the darkened splendor of his soul, and he was _moved_. He was moved by the sadness and anger, confusion and despair, all felt with the undiluted passion of a child. Not weathered or beaten or corroded by time like those of prior contractors, but raw and unvarnished, shining incandescent with the purity of youth. He felt a pang in his _chest_ – his _human heart_ \- and so _they_ became bisected – human and demon became cleaved and fractured along newly-etched fault lines, as the human’s consciousness was culled from the vast expanse of the cosmic primordium. 

The boy turned to him, grasped the tail of his waistcoat, leaving speckles of dirt and blood, and baptized him as Sebastian Michaelis. And for the first time, _Sebastian Michaelis_ felt the crushing weight of a human body wracked with the hunger of a demon, the immensity – the _impossibility_ \- of a human existence encumbered with an unfathomable, unshakeable bond that stretched eternal; this absurd, asymptotic attempt to capture infinity within something finite. He collapsed under the crushing weight of it all, falling to his knee on the ground to crouch before his master. Sebastian looked up upon his young lord, like a gosling looking upon its mother, like one of the faithful looking upon its Creator, and the demon _felt_ Sebastian’s heart become branded by the boy’s name as his hand became branded by their shared mark. _My lord… my little lord…_ A heart beat, and they were fractured. 

The demon had had no concept of time prior to this, no concept of eternity. His contract bonds had been as insubstantial as fog, evaporating like morning mist off the riverbanks once the souls were consumed, vanishing into oblivion along with all memories of his previous contractors and of his previous lives. But within this singularity, this conflation of human and demon, the contract bond became crystallized, was made incarnate, and it shackled him and his master together, solid and indelible as if forged from wrought-iron. And the chain became infinitely warm, on fire, set ablaze by something human, something unrecognizable. It scalded Sebastian’s skin and scorched his insides so that all of it would ache, so that everything would always _ache_.

In that moment the demon thinks about time, thinks about the bond – one that will persist after Ciel has ceased to exist; after Sebastian has ceased to exist. What will that be – an eternal bond – permanent and untethered, like time itself? Ciel will of course cease to exist. He will be killed and his soul will be consumed. This was written into their covenant, written into his destiny, as irrevocable as the passage of time, as the certainty of death. And after he has died, after his body has been interred in the ground, has disintegrated into the earth, and the Earth has disintegrated into the heavens, and Ciel Phantomhive has returned to the stardust from which he was made, the demon will still be searching the world for a soul as perfect as his.  Because, in that moment, he realizes that Sebastian Michaelis will never cease to exist, and that he – _they_ \- will always belong to Ciel Phantomhive.

*****

His master lies beneath him, panting, cheeks flushed, looking up with eyes wide and pupils dilated into dark pools of oily black, surrounded by an ocean of royal blue. He looks unsure of what to do next, so Sebastian lays on his side and wraps his arms around the young Earl’s small fragile body and pulls it flush against his own. Ciel, his face now buried against Sebastian’s shoulder, starts to grind against his stomach. At first in slow, fitful surges, and then faster, more frenzied as he searches for release. But it’s not enough. Ciel is suffocating, overcome by the need to escape from, or extinguish, or give into this _need_ , this want, this conflagration that Sebastian has ignited in his centre that threatens to consume him whole, the shear intensity of it only equaled by Sebastian’s own desire to touch him, taste him, to coil himself around him and tighten the noose, to _be_ everything and _do_ everything his master desires, to possess him and be possessed. Sebastian feels the boy’s palms gripping his shoulder and pushing him to his back. Ciel then climbs atop and straddles him, bent over Sebastian’s chest, head still tucked next to Sebastian’s. He anchors one knee on either side of Sebastian’s waist, and continues to grind and twist against the flat, solid plane of Sebastian’s stomach, steadied by Sebastian’s hands on his hips. Sebastian looks up at his master, the storm of fire and lava in his eyes casting an unearthly carmine glow on the boy’s face. He feels the familiar ache in his heart as it expands and unfolds its moth’s wings against a cage of ribs and bone. Sebastian is unable to clear his eyes of its violet roil, but he cannot look away. It doesn’t matter because his master is not looking at him. Ciel’s eyes are closed shut and his brow is creased, his face contorted in an almost pained expression as he bites his lower lip in agonized concentration. Sebastian feels nails digging into his scalp, as his master keeps rocking and rutting against him, circling frantically inside the maelstrom toward his climax.

Ciel makes very little noise - he rarely does; no vulgar moans, no wanton cries, no screams of his name or God’s. All Sebastian can hear is the boy’s erratic panting and shuddering sighs, like someone rubbing snake oil over a gaping wound, foolishly hoping to mend it but only making the exposed flesh singe and secrete.  Finally, a seismic tremor runs through Ciel’s body and a strangled cry escapes his throat as he comes undone in his butler’s arms.

He has collapsed on top of Sebastian, his eyes wet and his breathing ragged and gasping, as he tries to come down from his orgasm, tries to reassemble the pieces of himself. His breathing starts to slow, but his heart is still pounding at an impossible pace, beating next to Sebastian’s own. Sebastian moves his palms up to Ciel’s back, rubbing wide, slow circles to try to soothe the child. Finally, he brings one hand to cradle the boy’s head and gently runs his fingers through his hair. “Young master…” he breathes. After a moment, the boy raises his head to look at him. His eyes lock with Sebastian’s, tranquil ocean of blue meeting a chaotic volcanic swirl of crimson. _My lord… my little lord…_ Ciel does not look away, is not frightened. His are eyes hazy with sadness and loss, hazy with hopelessness and defeat, hazy with _love_. His body, his soul, sometimes it all seems like a small price to pay. The demon _feels_ Sebastian’s heart - branded by the boy’s name the way his hand is branded by their shared mark - clench and ache, pound desperately against his chest.

*****

Sebastian Michaelis may _love_ Ciel Phantomhive. The demon observes this, can feel it. It is not a human love of course, because Sebastian Michaelis is not human. The love is corrupted by the demon, just as the demon is corrupted by the human. His love, the demon’s love, may be a hunger that will never abate, even after he has consumed the soul of Ciel Phantomhive. _Love_ , hunger, desire. These may all collide into one all-encompassing force, the sheer endothermic energy of their fusion binding them together, creating something previously undiscovered, unimagined. Sebastian Michaelis may be the chrysalis from which the demon will emerge, as a different creature altogether.

_Love_. He turns the word around in his mind, studies it, tries to dissect it, to get at its insides, its skeleton, its entrails. He knows about human love, had seen that build and destroy, create and consume. He had seen all the different versions of it - the idealized notion of _unconditional_ love, and the more common form, tainted with suspicion, possessiveness, obsession, disappointment. He had seen love of the selfless variety, like that of a mother toward her child; not just selfless but self-abnegating, wherein the life of the beloved takes precedence over that of the lover. No, this is not what he feels toward his master. It is not what _he - Sebastian -_ feels toward his master. He wants Ciel not as he is now, not as he could be in some conditional present had he remained untouched by darkness, had their fates not collided, but as what the demon could mould him to be, cultivate him, sow his darkness, until his soul mirrors the darkness within the demon himself. Sebastian’s love is corrupted by the demon, and so his love requires corruption of his beloved.

What about the other kind of love - that of a lover; much more volatile, unmoored, mutable; one that grows old, withers and dies much like the lover; one that so often teeters on the brink of hate? No, this is not it either. The mutual possession contained within their covenant is forever; he owns and is owned for eternity. Time cannot erode the shackles of this bond. He does not want this possession to destroy Ciel, only to chip away at the unformed stone, to chisel it so as to reveal the beautifully debauched marble statue hidden beneath. So then what is it - this attachment? He does not know - cannot not find its equal in his catalogue of millennia’s worth of experiences.

But.

He knows that when he imagines two realities, one in which Ciel is alive – the current one, the one they are inhabiting - and one in which he is not - destroyed by a hand other than his own - the latter possibility fills him with _wrath,_ like all the fiery furnaces and roiling volcanic seas of Hell contained in his fragile, impermanent human form. He also feels a deep corrosive pang inside. Not a hunger but an _ache_ , a lancinating pain gnawing frantically at his chest - his _heart -_ like someone trying to claw their way out of their coffin. _Anguish? Heartbreak?_

Then the demon imagines a third reality, one wherein he has fulfilled the terms of his contract and claimed his master’s vengeance, claimed his master’s soul for himself. One wherein he has consumed his most prized possession, his most precious and exquisite meal. One wherein Ciel Phantomhive has ceased to exist – this time by his own hand. And in that reality, he imagines a void, both within himself and within the world. A void so infinitely wide, and as deep as it is wide, that no number of souls, no span of time, no stretch of immortality can begin to fill it.

The demon thinks he imagines _regret_.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m always fascinated by what seems to be the third rail of this mythology, which is what will happen to Sebastian after he kills Ciel and eats his soul. Consuming Ciel’s soul, I believe, is the perfect conclusion for their story – the perfect bittersweet tragic ending to their incredibly bittersweet and tragic bond. It’s what Ciel wants. It’s what Sebastian wants. It was fated. This doesn’t mean that either of them are going to be happy. Canon Sebastian may not be too torn up, and have a “we’ll always have Paris” attitude towards the whole thing, but my headcanon Sebastian will feel this yawning emptiness that he won’t be able to explain. Like, basically peaking in life, you know? When you have that moment when you know it’s all downhill from here. Or like when you know your greatest creative moments and intellectual achievements are behind you; like Lennon and McCartney after the White Album, or J. D. Salinger after Catcher in the Rye, or Einstein after the theory of relativity…
> 
> Also, as always, feedback is welcome! It’s a huge motivator to write again!


End file.
